1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to a vehicular illumination system, and in particular to a vehicular illumination system that controls the distribution of light emitted from headlights or the like.
2. Related Art
As a vehicular illumination system that controls the light distribution of headlights or the like, the technology described in Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open (JP-A) No. 2006-21631, for example, has been proposed.
In the technology described in JP-A No. 2006-21631, it is proposed to provide: plural light sources that illuminate respectively different regions to form a predetermined overall light distribution pattern including a main light distribution portion and a peripheral light distribution portion; a camera that images the front of a vehicle; a dangerous object determination component that determines whether or not an object is a dangerous object that poses a danger to the travel of the vehicle on the basis of the image acquired by the camera; and a light source control component that changes the orientations of the plural light sources to illuminate the dangerous object when the dangerous object so determined by the dangerous object determination component is located outside the main light distribution portion. That is, in the technology described in JP-A No. 2006-21631, what is proposed is to perceive a target object around the subject vehicle by photographing the target object with a camera and performing light distribution control, such as directing light axes, with respect to the recognized target object.
However, in the technology described in JP-A No. 2006-21631, when there are many target objects, or when the situation around the subject vehicle changes rapidly such as when approaching an intersection, the processing load of image processing and the like with respect to the image photographed by the camera rises, and there is the potential for this to cause delays in control. Accordingly, there remains scope for further improvements in control.